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Mother Shot at Theater in Colorado Miscarries

DENVER — A pregnant mother who was wounded and lost her 6-year-old daughter in the shooting rampage at a Colorado movie theater had a miscarriage on Saturday, her family announced in a statement.

The mother, Ashley Moser, was among the 58 people who were wounded on July 20 at the Century 16 multiplex in the eastern Denver suburb of Aurora. Her daughter, Veronica Moser-Sullivan, was the youngest of the 12 people killed.

A brief statement released by the family said Ms. Moser was recovering from surgery she underwent on Saturday morning. It said that the family was still making plans for Veronica’s funeral and that Ms. Moser’s “lifetime of care will be a long road.”

A spokeswoman for the Arapahoe County district attorney, which is prosecuting the case, declined to comment on whether the miscarriage could affect the barrage of charges expected to be filed on Monday against James E. Holmes, the sole criminal defendant.

But Colorado’s laws suggest that it might not. State homicide laws apply only to a person who is “born and was alive” at the moment of the crime and specifically exclude fetuses from that definition.

Colorado lawmakers debated enacting a fetal homicide law this spring, but the proposal failed, in part because of concerns that it was a veiled attempt to criminalize abortion. At least 38 states have some form of fetal homicide laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Mr. Holmes, 24, is due in court on Monday. It will be his second public appearance since he was arrested moments after the shooting, when he was clad in black commando-style gear and was in possession of two handguns, a shotgun and an assault rifle, according to law enforcement officials.

At his first court appearance last week, a brief procedural hearing to advise him of his rights, Mr. Holmes seemed dazed and disconnected. With his hair dyed a bright orange, he sat shackled in the courtroom’s jury box, his eyes bugging wide at some times and nearly closed at others.

The hearing on Monday may unveil a few additional details about Mr. Holmes and the state’s worst mass shooting since the Columbine High School attack in 1999. A judge has ordered prosecutors and defense lawyers not to discuss the case and the University of Colorado, Denver, not to release any records about Mr. Holmes.

Mr. Holmes, described as a bright but quiet and enigmatic student, was a first-year student in the school’s neuroscience graduate program but was in the process of dropping out, school officials have said. A court filing on Friday revealed that Mr. Holmes had been seeing a psychiatrist at the university, but any other details about his mental health history remain undisclosed.

A version of this article appears in print on July 30, 2012, on page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Mother Shot At Theater In Colorado Miscarries. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe